Luis Toledo charged with murder in wife's death

Tuesday

Oct 29, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 29, 2013 at 11:22 AM

A reputed gang member with training in fighting techniques, Luis Toledo told deputies he struck a deathblow to the throat of his wife during an argument, according to a statement Monday night by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office announcing a murder charge against him.

By JOHN GALLAS, LYDA LONGA and PATRICIO G. BALONAlyda.longa@news-jrnl.com patricio.balona@news-jrnl.com

DELTONA — A reputed gang member with training in fighting techniques, Luis Toledo told deputies he struck a deathblow to the throat of his wife during an argument, according to a statement Monday night by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office announcing a murder charge against him. Nearly a week since relatives heard from Yessenia Suarez and her two children, Toledo, the man at the center of their disappearance, is charged with second-degree murder in her slaying, according to the statement released by Gary Davidson, sheriff's spokesman. No charges have been filed in the disappearances of her children, Michael Otto, 8, and Thalia Otto, 9. Investigators say the mother and children are dead, but after six days of searching by deputies, state agents and family members, their bodies have not been found.Deputies did find blood in Suarez's house, Davidson said.Suarez apparently had been talking about leaving Toledo, and her family has told investigators with the Sheriff's Office Major Case Unit of violent squabbles between the two that were never reported to law enforcement, Davidson said.“The conflict apparently came to a head Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 22), when Toledo showed up at his wife's workplace in Lake Mary to confront her and a co-worker who she had been seeing,” Davidson said.Toledo slapped Suarez in the face, then left. The next morning, deputies were at the Deltona house checking on Suarez and her children after Suarez's mother had called to report that she couldn't get a hold of her and was concerned that Toledo may have harmed her. Toledo drove up in a silver Saturn. He claimed that after he and his wife argued at the house the night before, he drove off in the Saturn at about 10 p.m., then returned to the house an hour later and slept in his car. Toledo told deputies that when he woke up at about 8 the next morning, his wife and her children were gone, Davidson said. He said he left for work a short while later, but then turned around while on his way and came back home because he had forgotten his wallet. That's when he encountered the deputies at his house.But a break came during the investigation when a neighbor revealed that Toledo had knocked on the neighbor's window about 6 a.m. on Wednesday and asked for his help dropping off his wife's car. The neighbor agreed and followed Toledo to Lake Mary, driving the silver Saturn while following behind Toledo in his wife's black Honda. Then the neighbor and Toledo drove back to Deltona in the Saturn. Subsequent searches of the couple's house confirmed the presence of blood, Davidson said. Toledo initially denied having any involvement in the disappearance of his wife and her children. “During a subsequent interview with investigators, he admitted that while arguing with Suarez last Tuesday night, she became aggressive and so he struck her in the throat with an open hand and she subsequently died from the blow.”He has refused to disclose the whereabouts of Suarez's body and denies involvement in the children's deaths, Davidson said, and implicated someone else in their killings. Toledo was held without bail Monday at the Volusia County Branch Jail near Daytona Beach.Earlier in the day the Volusia County Sheriff's Office temporarily suspended the search Monday for the bodies of Suarez and her children. Members of Suarez's family, though, conducted their own search, combing through the waterway at Mariner's Cove Park on Lake Monroe near Enterprise. The group searched the park because it is close to Suarez's home and it would have been a place where the bodies of the three could have been disposed, Suarez's stepfather Ruben Perez said.Before Monday's charge, the 31-year-old Toledo has been in the Volusia County Branch Jail since Wednesday on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge out of Lake Mary. He had a first appearance hearing Friday at the jail and the judge ordered that he be sent back to Seminole County.But as Toledo was awaiting transport to the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford, Volusia County Sheriff's Office investigators removed him from the jail to question him on the disappearance and deaths of his wife, Suarez, and her two children. While at the Sheriff's Office in DeLand, Toledo asked to use the bathroom. He forced the door shut and attempted suicide.“This is one of the most unusual situations I've ever come across,” James Purdy, public defender, said earlier Monday before Toledo's arrest. “We expected him to be picked up by Seminole County over the weekend.”Purdy questioned why sheriff's investigators removed Toledo from the county jail and didn't instead interview him at the correctional facility. “They took him out of the jail so he was in a position not to be transported,” Purdy said. “Why did the jail allow him to be removed?”No one from the Sheriff's Office answered those questions Monday afternoon. Lake Mary police arrested Toledo in Deltona without a warrant from their jurisdiction, which was required, Purdy said, so he believes the arrest was illegal to begin with.Perez, the stepfather, said he and Suarez's mother were frustrated they had been told nothing. Perez said he called Texas EquiSearch of Orlando and asked them to assist, but said the Sheriff's Office declined the help.“The VCSO declining their help is frustrating to us as a family because we can't even begin to get close to a closure,” Perez said.

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